


Vines

by Trash_Queen



Category: Kamen Rider Gaim
Genre: body hoarding?, if u think hiding ur dead bf's body is romantic, kaitos dead tho so does it really count, keeping bodies, shippy? kinda?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 17:35:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2820506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash_Queen/pseuds/Trash_Queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They buried a jar of sand at the tree, instead of ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vines

**Author's Note:**

> i thought this was a rlly sweet sorta tragic idea before i wrote it down and then it just sorta sounded norman bates-levels of creepy and i was like 'slam out a fic real fast itll be fine' and this sorta just, here
> 
> sorry if its hard to follow;;;;;

What to do with the body. What to do with the body was the question on almost everyone's mind. Everyone else had wanted to bury it, and Peco and Zack supposed that was appropriate. Traditionally, with a nice grave in nice cemetery, on a hill, that they all could visit every year and keep clean and leave flowers at. Somewhere out of the way, where they all used to live when they were younger. Maybe scatter the ashes somewhere after they cremated him.  
They told everyone else they would take care of it, Kaito was their [family,boyfriend,friend,team leader], they should bury him. Of course they planned a wake, and a funeral. A few days before, they sat down at their table, in their new apartment. The old headquarters were long abandoned by now- baron's, gaim's, raid wild's, everyones. no one went to that part of the city anymore. And Peco stared into their cup of coffee and said, "I can't do it."

The headquarters were perfect for this. Their old home, their old workplace. It seemed half right and half funny, almost. That place wasn't alive anymore, and Kaito, who was never relaxed in life, looked too peaceful in death, laying quietly in his old room.

They buried a jar of sand at the tree, with everyone else there. Some of their friends looked angry. Most of them had sad, somber expressions, and comforting words on their tongues. Zack noticed Mitsuzane wasn't there, and that Peco looked particularly mad, jamming the shovel aggressively between the roots. Zack leaned on his crutches with the jar in his hand, and didn't think too hard about how they weren't putting Kaito in the ground, but it felt like they were. To everyone else they were. They all went to Drupers afterwords. Mr. Bando gave them parfaits, on the house, with a sympathetic smile.

"Why isn't it rotting?" Zack peeked into the room Kaito's body was in. It had been a month, and his body still looked the same, almost exactly. "It should be bloated by now or something, shouldn't it?" "You know how bodies are supposed to decompose?" Peco pulled sandwiches, bottles of juice and vodka, and a couple of cups out in front of where they sat cross-legged on the floor. They had settled down in the hallway this time, instead of the front room they had all hung out in before, or one of their old bedrooms or a handful of other places around the base. "I've seen it in movies." Zack shut the door and sat down across from them, his crutches long gone. "Isn't this a little… weird? We're keeping him in a room. Secretly." "I guess." Peco sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Could you do it though? Bury him?" Zack didn't answer. He opted to look at the food and drink they had brought instead of Peco.

They didn't come every day, they didn't even come every week. The fourth or fifth times they came by, Peco walked up the stairs to check on the body first. "How's it doing?" Zack shouted. "There's- There's something growing. Come up here!" Little green shoots were pushing up from beneath the skin, which was, upon observation, looking a little paler than it had been, more sallow. "Do you think it's the Helheim fruit again?" Zack swallowed. "It can't be. Can it? What are we gonna do about it? What are we gonna tell everyone-" "Nothing. We'll wait-" "We'll wait to see what it is," Peco took a deep breath and closed their eyes. "We'll wait and if it's the vines again, we'll- we'll burn it."

One week, no visit.   
Two weeks, no visit.   
Three weeks, no visit.   
Four weeks, a visit, late at night.   
The vines weren't Helheim fruit. They were just, plants. Vines with deep green, waxy leaves and small green buds that hadn't bloomed yet. They grew out of his mouth, his arms, his chest, his face. There was blood around the wounds where some of them had rooted. They bought pruning shears, found a bucket to toss the selected vine tips and buds in. Neither of them were particularly gifted with plants- there was a tendency towards over-pruning and weeks of negligence on their part. But there must have been something else, something alien and foreign, stuck in Kaito's flesh and blood that kept the vines alive.They had lost track of how many nights they had stayed up, how many afternoon hangouts they had made excuses to skip, before they got good at taking care of the vines.

Neither of them remember who said "I hate this" first.

It's a little bit like dancing, having to dodge probing questions and social obligations. 'Where were you saturday night's and rescheduling for dinners and movies and sleep overs. They never skipped dance practice, never. Lying is like dancing, you need practice to perfect it.

The room is so full of vines that is hard to see the body anymore. Zack clips dead vine tips and dying flowers with practiced movements, steps over them with bare feet until he's by the bed. The air smells green and fresh despite the almost-gone corpse.

One of them makes a "Kumon Kaito, born again" joke, and they both laugh. Kaito likely would have ignored the joke, or maybe he would have laughed a little.

"We’ve got to bury him somewhere." They're sitting on the sofa, in front of the TV eating dinner. Some show is playing, the volume turned down low. Zack was curled up across from Peco, poking at his food with a fork, waiting for them to say something. After a moment they just say, "We should."

There are too many vines when they go back for the last time. Peco pulls aside the ones that have grown over the door, and remembers that it's been a month since they had been here. There's no corpse that they can see anymore, what would they even bury or cremate? Maybe there are scraps of his old jacket that could be seen between the roots. They don't spend the rest of the day there, don't prune the vines or flowers, just leave the door to his room open and take the bus back to their apartment and their friends. There's nothing for them to do there anymore. Neither of them bring it up again. Eventually, they might as well have just buried the ashes that day, for everything that keeping his body had done.

**Author's Note:**

> now re-edited for grammar/style etc. hope its betterrrrrr


End file.
